Primary Essay on The Witness
NOTE for REFLECTION: Be sure to take time following the essay to journal about your personal experience of the Witness state, and to enter some portion of that journaling into the comments section. Prompts for reflection are listed at the end of the article.
Stepping Back from the Screen of the Mind
By Acharya Satyam Ehinger
We all know the term “witness” from shows like Law and Order, where the perspective of a witness serves to give us un-biased outlook on a complex situation. Such a person is considered clear minded, and their perspective is valuable for seeing beyond the blur of emotions and judgments that often cloud our perception. This kind of perspective isn’t just for the courtroom though, there are many times in our own life that we wish we could call upon the clarity of such a ‘witness’ in order to give us some perspective on major life decisions, or other times when we wish we could see a situation clearer so as not to make the same mistakes over and over again. As Shambhavananda teaches in his book Spiritual Practice, “When I talk about the witness state in meditation, I am referring to the ability to observe the comings and goings of your mind and emotions. That doesn’t make you asleep or less conscious or less engaged in life. It allows you to see the patterns established in your life and to improve yourself.” The witness perspective is not only a profound tool for meditation, but a necessary tool for navigating our lives. It is the ability to detach from your mind, as Babaji said, while you move through your life, enabling your mind to reflect the highest light of awareness into your life, helping you rise above limiting patterns and grow spiritually. With effort over time, the witness state can not only become a natural aspect of your life, but a key feature of your spiritual practice.
The Shiva Sutras teach that in order to grow as a yoga and avoid suffering we must use our practice to stay connected to the ‘fullness of our awareness’ as we interact with our mind and senses. “For those who are fully aware of God consciousness, all the organs of cognition, organs of action and organs of the intellect lead them to that supreme state of God consciousness,” teaches the Spanda Karikas (A shiva sutra commentary text), “For those who are not aware, these same organs deprive them completely of that God consciousness.” (1.20). This is one way of understanding the witness state, the practice of retaining the fullness of your awareness within each segment of your life. If we become disconnected from this fullness of awareness, then the mind and senses serve to distract us from our true nature. This is the definition of suffering in the yogic tradition, as we find ourselves “completely dependent on that illusive energy of knowledge, and being without real knowledge we are continuously doing right or wrong. So, being completely entangled in that fence we become just like a beast” (Tantrasadbhāva). Which is to say that when we start looking for our happiness and resolutions in the mind and senses we only get tangled up in them, and suffer. The witness practice helps us detach from that fence of the mind, gain perspective, and illuminate our life from a fuller space of awareness.
Bringing the fullness of our awareness to each moment of our life is not an exhausting process requiring extreme effort, but a natural process requiring regular effort over time. As Patanjali tells us in his Yoga Sutras, “The state of yoga is a natural state and our true condition. It is the understanding of the Inner Self which is not limited by our physical form (1.19)”. Having a mind, senses and physical body does not limit us from knowing our True Nature— in fact, through the witness state we see that this physical form, along with our mind and emotions, are the fuel for our inner growth. Eventually, the witness state, and the internal state of surrender, burn this fuel regularly throughout our day and we find ourselves growing spiritually in a very natural sustainable way. It’s important to remind ourselves that what we are seeking is already inside us, as Shambhavananda always teaches, our work is to surrender enough to recognize it— that’s the work of the witness.
But even though it’s natural, it still takes practice. That’s because, as we saw from the Sutras, our mind can either serve to bring us towards our true nature, or to distract us from it— and for most of us, our minds are a source of infinite distraction. To understand this you can think of your mind like your phone. The lower mind, the manas, collects data endlessly. The next level of the mind, the Ahamkara, or ego, organizes that data by identifying with it. The ego’s internal indexing helps us navigate our world, like google’s internal indexing helps us navigate the web, but the challenge arises when we start to associate more with our ego than our reality itself. As Shambhavananda teaches in his book, Spiritual Practice, “The ego is a necessary part of living in the world, but I don’t take it seriously” (SP, 82). This processing power of the mind can either serve to distract us, or help us grow, much like our phone. How we use it determines that capacity.
To determine how we use this phone of the mind we must look to the next, and highest, aspect of our mind, the Buddhi, or intellect. The Buddhi is one part phone and one part you— it is like a bridge between a higher formless aspect of ourselves and the lower more concrete aspect of ourself. Because it is like a bridge, the buddhi is often referred to as a type of ‘gatekeeper’, as it becomes a decider of where we put our focus and energy. It is like your ability to choose to use your phone, or to choose not to use your phone, depending on whether it is supporting your work or distracting you from it. The Buddhi is our mind’s ability to discern between distraction and growth— it’s our mind’s ability to detach, surrender and witness our reality while still being engaged with it.
But most of our Buddhi’s are quite flabby, as Shambhavananda often tells us. Our mind’s are distracted, and like a distracted gatekeeper, allows our focus to wander from one thing to another as we get sucked into the comings and goings of the mind. This grasshopper mind, as the saying goes, keeps your Buddhi weak, and disables it’s capacity to direct our attention to our higher Self. When we do regular practice, though, we strengthen our Buddhi. When we redirect our focus to the mantra or the breath, we are literally strengthening our Buddhi’s capacity to open and shut this gate— to recognize what is the chatter of the mind and senses and distinguish it from that which is more eternal and internal within us. This is the spiritual muscle of surrender that Swami Rudrananda described. I think we can all relate to this muscle of surrender when we get sucked into our phone, or any other screen of the mind— it takes alot of work to let it go, and if you have a regular practice then it’s easier to recognize these moments and skillfully surrender them.
The witness state is the practice of consciously detaching from the screen of the mind, whether it’s your literal phone or simply mental chatter, and placing your attention on the fullness of your awareness within. This does not require that we shut off our phones or our minds, although many times it will require such action. It simply requires that we practice detaching from it while we work with it. As we do this we are able to have a fuller awareness of ourselves while working within the limitations of the mind. This, the Sutras told us, is how we maintain the fullness of our awareness within the limitations of the mind, which makes the mind an ally in your growth instead of a distraction from it. This is also one way of understanding Swami Rudrananda’s teaching of “using one’s life for growth”, as we begin to use each situation of our life as an opportunity to detach, surrender and witness.
As Shambhavananda told us earlier, the witness state is the “ability to observe the comings and goings of your mind and emotions.” These 'comings and goings’ are constantly coming and going, so we must learn to witness them, or else we will be dragged around by them endlessly. As Babaji teaches, “Witness how you are busy redefining everything each moment as things happen. This redefining absorbs an enormous amount of time and energy that you should spend searching for your true self.” Our lower mind gathers and identifies with this data endlessly, but the higher aspect of the mind, the Buddhi, can discern between that which is external and temporary and that which is internal and eternal. Through regular practice, the discerning power of the Buddhi is strengthened, and we begin see a ‘fullness of awareness’ shining into our lives, guiding us towards growth instead of distraction. This is the work of the witness practice, the sustained practice of surrender within the context of your life.
Take some time now to journal and reflect on your personal experience of the Witness state in your practice.
When you zoom out for a moment, and see the room you’re in, what’s your impression of the witness perspective? How do YOU describe this state of being, this perspective? What does it really feel like when YOU ‘witness’ your reality for a even just a moment, or series of moments?
Try to deeply connect with your FEELING of the witness state. This initial FEELING will support you throughout the rest of your research, writing and presentation process, so make it REAL.